Voting Yes in this referendum is the last chance for a generation and perhaps for ever, to prevent abortions taking place on one floor of an Irish maternity hospital while on the next medical personnel sweat blood to save the lives of tiny premature babies, writes Breda O'Brien.
I am not suggesting that it would happen overnight, but happen it would. At the moment the guidelines of the Medical Council prevent it, as do the wishes of the vast majority of Irish doctors. But if this carefully crafted referendum proposal is defeated, do you think Fianna Fáil would ever go out on such a limb again?
Fine Gael sat on the fence for years, not wishing either to legislate or offer a referendum. Now both Fine Gael and Labour are committed to legislating. Legislation can only take place within the terms of the X case, which offers no time limit on abortions and allows for abortion on the grounds of suicide.
It is hard to blame the electorate for claiming confusion. It makes me want to beat my head against the nearest wall that it is pro-life people who are advocating a No vote who are the source of a great deal of that confusion.
If we take them out of the equation, we are left with a few passionate advocates of a pro-choice position on the No side. If it were not for the pro-life No voters, it would be startlingly clear that this is a debate between pro-choice advocates and those who believe that abortion is a lousy choice for women and an even worse one for those not yet born.
Take Doctors for Choice, who support a woman's right to terminate the life in her womb, although they would treat that life as a second patient if the woman expressed a desire not to have an abortion. Twice on the Eamon Dunphy show on Today FM, Dr Juliet Bressan of Doctors for Choice was asked if she thought the unborn had any rights.
Twice she replied that "unborn" was not a medical term. She refused to deal with the question, because it is the question which pro-choice people cannot contemplate. If they admit that this tiny developing life has any rights, their position becomes untenable.
The whole problem with the abortion debate is that it is conducted as if women and members of the next generation are locked in competition for rights. If women are to receive their rights, the unborn must forfeit theirs. If the unborn receive their right to be born, to breathe, to suck, to focus on a face, women's rights must somehow be negated.
What if that is a disastrously limited view of the world? What if granting rights to one group does not automatically deprive another? It astonishes me that those who can clearly see this, say in relation to the developing world, cannot or will not see it with regard to developing human life.
One would think that those who would deny rights to others before birth had somehow themselves escaped the human condition of being totally, utterly dependent on others to bring them into the world and care for them for years on end.
What if women and babies are not locked in deadly opposition, but are on the same side, both entitled to the best that society can offer, including medical treatment? What if both were guaranteed that everything possible would be done to secure both their lives, and that would be enshrined in law? If that vision appeals to you, vote Yes to this referendum.
Some pro-choice people claim that excluding suicide as a ground for abortion endangers women's lives. Yet they seek to rubbish research which shows that women are at greater risk of suicide after an abortion, even though the overall risk remains small. The conclusion is inescapable. If they were really interested in whether women's lives were at risk they would look at the reality that suicide is a risk after abortion.
Prof Anthony Clare, who by no stretch of the imagination could be termed a conservative, co-wrote a robust statement with Prof Patricia Casey declaring that abortion was not a psychiatric issue: "Those who powerfully demand that women should have the right to choose to abort their unborn babies should not enrol psychiatry or psychiatric justifications for their cause."
Suicidal tendencies in a pregnant woman are treated as they would be in any other patient, with support, with medication if necessary and with counselling. It is extraordinary that abortion should be touted as a treatment for suicidal tendencies while studiously ignoring what constitutes real treatment.
The Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists has endorsed unequivocally this referendum, declaring that it will provide legislative support to the best current medical practice. They deplored sensationalised reports that women would not receive emergency treatment.
One can understand that none of this is enough for those who cling to the notion that undergoing surgery to end a developing life constitutes some kind of liberation for women.
But what are we to make of those who oppose it on the pro-life side? I know that they are sincere, but in this case sincerity is not enough. This referendum does not give everything they want, so they are going to set their faces against it. In conjunction with the Crisis Pregnancy Agency, a Yes vote in this referendum is a positive statement that there is a better way for women than abortion. It will be an extraordinary responsibility to bear if this amendment is defeated by pro-life No votes, and legislation to introduce abortion ensues.